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Many wrongly denied U.S. citizenship, court rules

By The Associated Press

Posted:
09/25/2013 12:01:00 AM MDT

Sigifredo Saldana Iracheta has been deported at least four times.

BROWNSVILLE, Texas — For more than two decades, Sigifredo Saldana Iracheta insisted he was a U.S. citizen, repeatedly explaining to immigration officials that he was born to an American father and a Mexican mother in a city just south of the Texas border.

Year after year, the federal government rejected his claims, deporting the 49-year-old married father of three at least four times.

In rejecting Saldana's bid for citizenship, the government sought to apply an old law that cited Article 314 of the Mexican Constitution, which supposedly dealt with legitimizing out-of-wedlock births. But there was a problem: The Mexican Constitution has no such article.

The error appears to have originated in 1978, and it has been repeated ever since.

Saldana's case was finally resolved earlier this month, when the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals dismissed the government's explanation of a "typo" and ruled that he had been a citizen since birth.

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